Prevalence of needlestick injuries among health-care workers in iranian hospitals: An updated systematic review and meta-analysis

Needlestick and sharp injuries have been identified as the most dangerous factor among health‑care workers. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 385,000 health‑care workers experience needlestick each year.

The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of needlestick injuries (NSIs) in Iranian health‑care workers. In this review and meta‑analysis, the local and international databases such as Scopus, Medline, PubMed, ScienceDirect, Web of Science, Google Scholar, Scientific Information Database (SID), and Magiran were searched using keywords including “prevalence” OR “needle” OR “needle stick” OR “Sharp injury” OR “Iranian personnel’s” OR “Iranian health care workers” OR “Iranian hospitals” OR “Iran.” The original researches that determined the prevalence of NSIs among Iranian health‑care workers and published from January 2005 to June 2019 were included in the current study. The pooled prevalence of NSIs was determined using a random‑effects model with a 95% confidence interval. All analyses were performed using STATA version 11 (Stata Corporation, College Station, TX, USA). P < 0.05 was considered as a significant level.

The overall prevalence of NSIs among Iranian health‑care personnel was about 50.8 (46.3–55.2). Furthermore, this prevalence in educational, noneducational, both noneducational and educational, and military centers was about 51.1 (46.5–57.7), 40.4.1 (34.2–46.6), 61.0 (32.1–89.9), and 41.5 (23.0–60.0), respectively. The prevalence of NSIs among the nurses was 51.1 (45.4–56.8), which was more than other groups.

The prevalence of NSIs in Iranian hospitals was high. Since most of the injuries are caused by nurses, more intervention programs should be designed for nurses in these wards.